Part 4 (1/2)

_I am the Life! O Death, where is thy sting?_

IV

But there was more in Sydney Carton's experience than we have yet seen.

It happens that this great saying about _the Resurrection and the Life_ is not only Sydney Carton's text; it is Frank Bullen's text; and Frank Bullen's experience may help us to a deeper perception of Sydney Carton's. In his _With Christ at Sea_, Frank Bullen has a chapter ent.i.tled 'The Dawn.' It is the chapter in which he describes his conversion. He tells how, at a meeting held in a sail-loft at Port Chalmers, in New Zealand, he was profoundly impressed. After the service, a Christian worker--whom I myself knew well--engaged him in conversation. He opened a New Testament and read these words: '_I am the_ _Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die._' The earnest little gentleman pointed out the insistence on faith: the phrase '_believeth in Me_' occurs twice in the text: faith and life go together. Would Frank Bullen exercise that faith?

'Every word spoken by the little man went right to my heart,' Mr. Bullen a.s.sures us, 'and, when he ceased, there was an appeal in his eyes that was even more eloquent than his words. But beyond the words and the look was the interpretation of them to me by some mysterious agency beyond my comprehension. For, in a moment, the hidden mystery was made clear to me, and I said quietly, ”I see, sir; and I believe!” ”Let us thank G.o.d!”

answered the little man, and together we knelt down by the bench. There was no extravagant joy, no glorious bursting into light and liberty, such as I have read about as happening on those occasions; it was the satisfaction of having found one's way after long groping in darkness and misery--_the way that led to peace_.'

Now the question is: did those words--the words that came with such power to Frank Bullen in the New Zealand sail-loft, and to Sydney Carton in the Paris streets--have the same effect upon both? Did they lead both of them to penitence and faith and peace? I think they did. Let us return to Sydney Carton as the sun is rising on that memorable morning on which he sees the text everywhere. He leaves the streets in which he has wandered by moonlight and walks beside a stream.

'A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened color of a dead leaf, glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors ended in the words: ”_I am the Resurrection and the Life._”'

'_He that believeth in Me ... whosoever believeth in Me!_'--the insistent demand for faith.

'_He that believeth in Me!_'--Sydney Carton believed and found peace.

'_He that believeth in Me!_'--Frank Bullen believed and found peace.

Paul has a cla.s.sical pa.s.sage in which he shows that those who have pa.s.sed through experiences such as these, have themselves '_risen with Christ into newness of life_.'

_Risen with Christ!_ They have found _the Resurrection_!

_Newness of life!_ They have found _the Life_!

In his _Death in the Desert_, Browning describes the attempts that were made to revive the sinking man. It seemed quite hopeless. The most that he would do was--

To smile a little, as a sleeper does, If any dear one call him, touch his face-- And smiles and loves, but will not be disturbed.

Then, all at once, the boy who had been a.s.sisting in these proceedings, moved by some swift inspiration, sprang from his knees and proclaimed a text: '_I am the Resurrection and the Life!_' As if by magic, consciousness revisited the prostrate form; the man opened his eyes; sat up; stared about him; and then began to speak. A wondrous virtue seemed to lurk in the majestic words that the boy recited. By that virtue Sydney Carton, Frank Bullen, and a host of others pa.s.sed from death into life everlasting.

V

I began by saying that it is a great thing--a very great thing--to be able to save those you love by dying for them.

I close by stating the companion truth. It is a great thing--a very great thing--to have been died for.

On the last page of his book d.i.c.kens tells us what Sydney Carton would have seen and said if, on the scaffold, it had been given him to read the future.

'I see,' he would have exclaimed, 'I see the lives for which I lay down my life--peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy--in that England which I shall see no more. I see her with a child upon her bosom who bears my name. I see that I hold _a sanctuary_ in all their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed; and I know that each was not more honored and held sacred in the other's soul than I was in the souls of both!'

'I see that I hold _a sanctuary in all their hearts_!'--it is a lovely phrase.

It is a great thing--a very great thing--to have been died for!